More often than not, the true reason behind universities scheduling “cup-cake” games, or easy games against easier opponents, is lost on the fans and the media.
This season in particular, I have heard a lot of radio hosts, call-in fans and social media fans complaining about some teams’ strength of schedule.
A lot of these radio hosts know why such games are scheduled, but for some reason they do not approve. I am of the opinion they went to one of these D1-A schools.
The truth of the matter is that the larger school has everything to lose and nothing to gain. The win, if they get it, does not help their strength of schedule argument for placement in the BCS, AP or Coache’s polls.
If they do not get the win, the larger school will most likely be dropped out of the Top 25 rankings like this year’s Arkansas Razorbacks.
I understand their argument, but it would be nice to have them look at things from a smaller school’s perspective. APSU is the smallest school in the Ohio Valley Conference.
The athletic teams bring in a lot of revenue to this school. I do not have exact figures, but I do know in the past four years at APSU, I have seen the Hemlock building completed, construction on a new Computer Science building started and am hearing plans of a new football stadium getting started possibly as soon as next year.
Maybe, in the near future, if we sacrifice our football players a few more times to some D1-A schools, APSU will get a much needed parking garage.
It seems easy for the fans and alumni of the Volunteers, Commodores and other teams from major BCS conferences to complain about the “cup-cake” teams they unfortunately have to watch their teams destroy every season, but this type of scheduling has made smaller teams better, and most importantly, promoted better learning opportunities for all the students.
If you are arrogant enough to think that your tuition alone pays for all these things, I challenge you to build a house using only the money made after you graduated high school.
The concrete alone that goes into these building is astronomically priced, and that’s not even counting all the technological upgrades that go into building a university.
The truth is, the more these smaller schools get the “big-time” playing experience the less likely they will be a “cup-cake” the next time they play a major conference school. Isn’t that right Arkansas, Auburn, Kentucky and Tennessee?
